Blair Witch (2016) is Found Foogate in Name Only
Posted: Thu May 15, 2025 12:02 am
Building from the point I made before that Cloverfield was as a found footage film (though the film itself is great) I have to say that Blair Witch (2016) is not a found footage film. I mean it technically is the characters are recording the events themselves but the way it's filmed is clear this is found footage in name only.
This is perhaps best shown in the film's very first scene. Most found footage films tend to start in the most basic way, an interview or a character just recording something they found interesting or an introduction to their "Documentary" something that regular people would do... this film starts with a character running through the Blair Witch's house before we cut to the people watching it and this scene is we're watching is a YT video, that we hear the characters talking over when the scene ends.
I haven't seen many Found Footage films but most of them work well enough to convince me to go along for the ride. This film's very first scene is clearly just something to get people hyped for what's to come and broke my willingness to suspend my disbelief right away. The moment I saw that I went "Wow their not even going to try" and that was only reinforced throughout the rest of the film.
The film does everything it can do make the Found Footage angle not work because the directors are clearly more interested in getting the best shots and to keep the momentum of the scene going at the pace they want. There are several cameras, and the character in frame are the ones we're meant to be focusing on instead of making the character who's recording being the focus.
But what really bugs me is that the film includes sounds that are clearly just a poorly disguised soundtrack. And when I say poorly disguised, I mean this film isn't even trying to hide the fact the score is in the film.
The worst offender is the scene with the stick figures. Like in the first film there is a moment when characters see the iconic stick figures around their camp only taken to the absolute extreme (seriously this comes off a parody with how many there are here) and during this scene there's this noise that the characters don't even notice and it's obviously the soundtrack trying to make this scene as creepy as possible.
Here take a look (Warning: This Includes a bit of body horror so don't watch if you're not into that)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyHOKleZzFM
See what I mean, this makes it clear that this only found footage because it's a sequel to the first film but the film goes out of it's way to not be Found Footage.
And there are so many moments like this in the film that makes it clear the directors either didn't want to have this be Found Footage or they were just didn't know how to do Found Footage. As bad as Cloverfield was as a FFF it's clear that Matt Reeves was doing his best and was clearly taking inspiration from The Blair Witch Project but in Blair Witch (Seriously they couldn't up with a Subtitle in 2016?) there was no effort to make this a proper Found Footage Film.
This is perhaps best shown in the film's very first scene. Most found footage films tend to start in the most basic way, an interview or a character just recording something they found interesting or an introduction to their "Documentary" something that regular people would do... this film starts with a character running through the Blair Witch's house before we cut to the people watching it and this scene is we're watching is a YT video, that we hear the characters talking over when the scene ends.
I haven't seen many Found Footage films but most of them work well enough to convince me to go along for the ride. This film's very first scene is clearly just something to get people hyped for what's to come and broke my willingness to suspend my disbelief right away. The moment I saw that I went "Wow their not even going to try" and that was only reinforced throughout the rest of the film.
The film does everything it can do make the Found Footage angle not work because the directors are clearly more interested in getting the best shots and to keep the momentum of the scene going at the pace they want. There are several cameras, and the character in frame are the ones we're meant to be focusing on instead of making the character who's recording being the focus.
But what really bugs me is that the film includes sounds that are clearly just a poorly disguised soundtrack. And when I say poorly disguised, I mean this film isn't even trying to hide the fact the score is in the film.
The worst offender is the scene with the stick figures. Like in the first film there is a moment when characters see the iconic stick figures around their camp only taken to the absolute extreme (seriously this comes off a parody with how many there are here) and during this scene there's this noise that the characters don't even notice and it's obviously the soundtrack trying to make this scene as creepy as possible.
Here take a look (Warning: This Includes a bit of body horror so don't watch if you're not into that)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyHOKleZzFM
See what I mean, this makes it clear that this only found footage because it's a sequel to the first film but the film goes out of it's way to not be Found Footage.
And there are so many moments like this in the film that makes it clear the directors either didn't want to have this be Found Footage or they were just didn't know how to do Found Footage. As bad as Cloverfield was as a FFF it's clear that Matt Reeves was doing his best and was clearly taking inspiration from The Blair Witch Project but in Blair Witch (Seriously they couldn't up with a Subtitle in 2016?) there was no effort to make this a proper Found Footage Film.